Fallout 4 Laptop on a $500 Budget

[airwalkrr]

My wife would like a laptop that can play Fallout 4 and maybe some older games as well (Fallout 3, Oblivion, Assassin's Creed 2). Her current laptop doesn't have the specs to play Fallout 4 so I told her I would get her a new one. It needs to be a laptop because she travels a lot so a desktop is not practical. She does not use her computer for a whole lot else besides syncing her iPhone.

My dilemma is that while I could easily afford to pay $2000 for a high quality gaming laptop, I have some reservations. I am frugal by nature and think the tool should be equal to the task (her gaming appetite is not nearly as demanding as mine). She hasn't wanted a new video game in several years, and I doubt she will want a new one for a while yet after this. In addition she has some poor habits involving beverages being near her computer so I would simply worry about an expensive piece of hardware being around that. She does not care a whole lot about the way the game looks so running things on low or medium settings will not bother her.

So could you recommend a laptop that would be around the $500 price range that would suit her purposes? I found this which could probably handle it (the CPU is a bit below the recommended 2.8 GHz but everything else is fine). I'm looking for some alternatives to consider though. I'd be willing to pay a little more to meet the minimum recommendations, but I have little experience with cheap laptops.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Quixit]

Short Answer no, Fallout 4 has serious GPU requirements.

I'd look at the Lenovo Y-series notebooks, you can get one for about $850 that comes with a Geforce 860m or 960m (not a big difference) and that will play Fallout 4 on Medium at 720p, or 1080p at lower framerate. If you're thinking High detail you'd have to fork out for a dedicated gaming laptop, which get pricey fast. But when it comes to shopping for notebooks for gaming GPU is really the only metric that matters, every mobile CPU they'll sell you along with a half decent CPU is more than enough. You might be able to find a close-out deal on something that is as good for a bit less if you look around.

 

[ST0RM91]

Speaking from experience, low end laptops don't handle gaming too well, especially the more demanding games such as fallout and oblivion.

I don't know about the US but in the uk a laptop designed to handle games starts at around £499, so around $740. Its maybe worth the investment as its still nowhere near the $2000 mark.

 

[airwalkrr]

I could stomach $750. But high detail is not even remotely necessary for my wife. She's not a graphics enthusiast and cares more about gameplay. As long as I can get something playable on low to medium she'll be plenty happy.

 

[airwalkrr]

I should note she loves the look of games like old-school Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog. There is really no high bar at all for visuals. It just has to run the game.

 

[ST0RM91]

I'm definitely not talking high visuals, just a solid medium that will run the games. You don't want an earful about fobbing her off with a crappy laptop now do you? 😉

Take it from me, there's nothing worse than working away from home, trying to play computer games to kill the time and having it crash / overheat on you.

 

[airwalkrr]

Exactly, ST0RM91. That's why I am willing to pay a little more to get her something that will be reliable if $500 won't cut it.

Regarding the visuals that was more a response to Quixit. It doesn't even have to be a solid medium. She thinks the games she plays on our PS3 look fine, even the ones that are just PS1 games she downloaded. LOL

She doesn't mod or anything like that at all. She'll just be playing the vanilla game. If I can get something that I can turn everything to Low except Draw Distance she'll be ecstatic.

 

[ST0RM91]

It should also mean shorter load times and in theory more longevity (unless she spills beverages on it!). I can't recommend you a specific laptop since we're in different countries however the $750-$800 mark is roughly where you want to be aiming to balance cost and ability to run games smoothly while on medium / low.

Laptops can be prone to overheating when used for gaming, meaning serious throttling. Maybe look into a cheap cooling stand also to keep all of the vents unblocked.